garin
1581
While in that sector you get a special button in the lower-right corner of the screen that lets you continue the mission.
The only time I let my guys off the leash, ever, is if I’ve scouted ahead and gotten aggro when I shouldn’t have. Otherwise just use the group move/position command. Even going down hallways. I’ll run ahead a ways, then send everyone to a spot, and keep going, rinse repeat. When I encounter the badguys I’ll find a good spot for combat and either group them together (if I’m using a shield generator and there aren’t too many hostile AoE types around) or position them separately if it seems like it might be a good idea. Say there’s a ridge-line I need to get my guys to see over as a group or if there is an AOE threat.
I never just say “What the hell!” because that does lead to mass chaos.
Use your positioning tools. They’re in there for a reason methinks.
Dejin
1583
If you’re playing single player you can pause the mission at any point and give commands. You start out with 45 seconds of pause time, but if you use it up, it slowly recharges itself throughout the mission.
Personally though, I ignore it and just go with the chaos. My Bridge Officers seem to do a better job of staying alive then I do. And the wild environment with phaser and disrupter shots going off all over the place feels in keeping with the source material.
skyride
1584
I can’t quiet put my finger on it, but for some reason “aggro”, “aoe”, “tanking” and such terms just feel really wrong in a Star Trek game. I mean I use those terms in other games like Lord of the Rings Online where they don’t fit either but somehow it’s more acceptable. But to hear lines like “my ship couldn’t hold aggro cause the healer ship was overhealing”, just seems plain wrong.
I still think this license is better suited to a single player game. Cryptic should hand over the license to Bioware; lets get a ME type game in the Star Trek universe.
I still haven’t seen how different roles come in to play though at level 22. Science and engineering ships may heal/repair themselves/other people a bit more, but everyone basically does as much damage as possible until the target dies.
Maybe things change at higher levels, but there are no agro/threat skills in space and the ones on the ground seem to be horrible. The only semi tank skill i’ve tried that i liked is overwatch:
Those three roles are not something brought about by the fantasy setting, it is just the only way we’ve seen to encourage players of different classes to work together to complete complex pve encounters. Without them, we get a star trek online situation where everyone is a dpser of varying ability. When the loot from a fleet action is solely decided on who pew pews the most, why would you be anything but a tactical escort if that was what you were concerned about?
Frankly, I’d say just play with folks you know and trust. Why feel forced into big groups that use mechanically artificial rulesets to force cooperation on content you have to rehearse and practice to get through which, in the end, feels more like synchronized swimming than a real combat?
I think the systems are pretty good for what they have to work with in terms of source material.
Because i dont think you have a choice. I don’t believe there is currently a way to do fleet action missions just with friends, even if you have a large group (fleet actions are about the size of a wow raid i think?) you play with.
The huge damage meter fest i thought i left behind in wow is the reason i don’t do fleet missions more than once.
The reason they are forced to use mechanically artificial rulesets is because nobody has found something else that works other than the “Everyone blast it with phasers on full” option of last resort.
Yeah, great idea.
“I know! We’ll have an open PvP blowout to celebrate the end of beta!”
“But aren’t most of your players telling you they don’t want open PvP in the game?”
“You’re missing the point! It’ll be an open PvP blowout!”
Dejin
1590
Fleet actions are big enough that you and your friends can go out on your own away from everyone else. I had great fun last night taking my Cruiser into Starbase 24, going off on my own and seeing how many enemy squadrons I could beat up on before dying. I somehow got separated from the group in the Gorn fleet action and could not for the life of me figure out where everyone else went, so I ended up on my own playing tag with Gorn battleships.
It would be nice to have the ability to create a personalized fleet action for a hand-picked set of captains.
I looted Tea, Earl Grey in a random exploration mission.
Dejin
1592
I only ever got the Spiced Vulcan Tea, which I got repeatedly, but probably not near as much as all that Klingon Gagh.
Once I got over the disappointment of what I expected the game to be versus what the game is, it’s actually pretty fun. It’s like Wing Commander Armada meets Starfleet Command meets Freelancer with a little ground combat (which is a little deeper than it may seem at first glance) thrown in.
After the beta, there will be a wipe, yes? And does anyone know if the rate of progression will be slowed down? I saw two Sovereign class starships this morning and the open beta was only around for a couple weeks and that seems kinda fast to get the higher tier ships.
Dejin
1594
Yes. There will be a wipe.
People have reported that they have fast leveled to Admiral in about 80 hours. That actually matches developer reports prior to the Beta.
OTOH I’ve put in over 70 hours and am still at Lt Commander 7. Assuming a flat leveling curve, that would put me at about 200 hours to hit end game.
In contrast it took me 320 hours to hit the original 50 level cap in LotRO. So STO is not orders of magnitude off, but probably a bit shorter in STO than LotRO. Hopefully the STO levelling curve isn’t flat, which would mean my STO estimate is low.
Just found out that exploration badges are used to purchase higher Mk equipment.
I didn’t even know about the ship requisition area. Never thought to go up the second floor of the starbase in the staryard section.
It wasn’t there early on. It’s only been open for a week or so.
Borg are at Sol Space Station!
Yeah, it’s crazy. I came out of a mission, and they were everywhere. This is not an enemy contact that you want to see in Sector Space:
They scanned as +35, for what it’s worth. Here’s the lobby on Earth Starbase:
I can summarise the Klingon “end of open beta event” experience with one handily Frapsed video:
I’ve had a lot of fun PvPing with my Klingon in the past few days and I’m really looking forward to starting one again this weekend, but this event was pointless on the Klingon side. Spawning into systems at the same point each time left us shot to pieces by an (understandbly) larger and higher level Federation side. Oh well.
I switched to my Federation character to get some Borg shooting in before sleep.
My view of the event was better said by someone else:
“feels like i’m playing left for dead”
The borg are basically undead except they seem to get shields after being shot a bot.
